NLP Presupposition: We Have All the Resources We Need To Succeed

The keys to success are uniquely human gifts like inspiration, imagination, confidence, faith, courage, optimism, creativity, hope, and foresight. These gifts are present in every human being.

To use these powerful gifts, we only need to be aware and accept that we have them.

Yet, we see many people who are unaware of these gifts or have lost touch with them. They are either ignorant of them, or there are some things that block them from accessing these gifts.

This is not surprising as these gifts are buried in our unconscious mind, and have to be brought up to our conscious mind. We can realise the power of these gifts only when they are brought into our conscious mind.

An ancient Sioux legend, illustrates very well that the human unconscious could be our last frontier.

One day, the Creator wanted to hide the uniquely human treasures like inspiration, imagination, and creativity from humans until they are ready see it.

The Creator gathered all the animals and sought their advice.

The eagle said: “Give it to me. I will take it to the highest mountain and keep it there.” The Creator replied: “One day, the humans will conquer the highest mountain, and find it.”

The salmon said: “Give it to me. I will take it to the deepest ocean and keep it there.” The Creator replied: “One day, the humans will explore the deepest depths of the ocean, and find it.”

The buffalo said: “Give it to me. I will bury it in the heart of the great plains and keep it there.” The Creator replied: “One day, humans will rip open the earth, and find it there.”

All were stumped until a mole spoke up: “Why don’t we hide it inside them? That is the last place they will look.”

The Creator replied in an instant: “It is done.”

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to uncover our human treasures by moving them from our unconscious mind to our conscious mind.

The key approach is in appreciating ourselves, our importance, and our self-worth.

We can practice self acknowledgement to uncover our treasures. To get inspiration, acknowledge that we are inspired. To access the power of our imagination, acknowledge that we are imaginative. To create, acknowledge that we are creative.

EVERY BEHAVIOUR HAS A POSITIVE INTENTION

Consciously and unconsciously, we strive to make the best choices we can, given what we know and have to work with at the point of making the decision.

So, whether we are aware of it or not, all our behaviours or actions have positive intentions. These include seemingly bad behaviour.

Indeed, many self sabotaging and anti-social behaviours have unconscious positive intent at their source.

For example, everyone knows that the habit of smoking is linked to all kinds of horrible diseases.

Why then do some people continue to puff away merrily in spite of nasty looks, banishment from shared space, overwhelming medical research, and burning holes in their pockets?

There are positive intentions behind every behaviour.

Smokers start to smoke for a conscious positive intention (to the smoker). Perhaps it makes them feel cool, or more grown up, or helps them fit in, or flaunt their individuality, or establish their identity, or signifies independence from parents, or express defiance against authourity like school.

Over time, new unconscious positive intentions creep in, like giving the smoker an excuse to take a break from work, or a way to give themselves a little reward, or a way to have some control over strong emotions, calm their nerves, or a way to feel a small sense of accomplishment as a cigarette burns itself up.

How do we spring clean our lives of such old unproductive habits of thought and self sabotaging behaviour?

I’ll answer this with a short story.

One day a young boy was on his knees pulling weeds, one by one, out of the lawn at his home.

His neighbour, a kind old lady, was watching him quietly, smiling.

When she finally got the boy’s attention, she gave him this advice: “The best way to keep the weeds out of your lawn is to plant beautiful flowers.”

So, the best way to keep unconscious intentions from creeping in and cluttering up our mind, is to plant conscious intentions.

EVERY BEHAVIOUR HAS A POSITIVE INTENTION

We are our intentions.

Our intentions shape our choices of our vision, beliefs, values, habits, and actions.

Our intentions determine our choices that lead to outcomes.

This is nature's law. This is the way nature works. We are all subject to nature's laws - whether we like it or not, whether we know it or are ignorant.

There are two kinds of intentions - conscious and unconscious.

Only conscious intentions can produce the intended outcomes for us. Meaning, only if you make your intention conscious either by saying it out loud, writing it down, or visualizing it in your mind, do you then stand a chance of achieving what you set your heart on.

On the other hand, unconscious intentions also produce outcomes but they are more often than not unintended outcomes.

Unconscious intentions are often the culprit underlying bizarre, unproductive behaviour and poor results.

Conscious intention is:

- A stretching or bending of the mind towards an objective

- A determination to act in a certain way or to do a certain thing

- The object towards which our thoughts are directed.

Conscious intentions are just focused thoughts and everything worthwhile starts as focused thoughts.

Everything is created twice. First in our mind as an intention, and then in reality.

Without that intention, there would be no reality. This is true of both conscious and unconscious intentions.

A building is first created in the mind of the architect before it rises into the air.

An airplane is created in the mind of its designer first before it cruises through the airways.

We too are created twice.

Yes, us - we are our most important creation. We are first created in our minds before others see us in flesh and blood.

Our intentions, conscious and unconscious, made ourselves us.

If you want to be the best that you can be, be conscious of whom you are making yourself to be, in your own mind.

Your intention creates your reality, so it pays to know what your intentions are.

Presuppositions of NLP - Leave Others in a Better State

Conscious and Unconscious Mind

According to a Sufi parable, one dark night, the neighbours saw Mullah Nasruddin on all fours, searching frantically for something under the street light outside his house.

When asked if he needed help, the Mullah said that he was looking for his key.

After searching in vain together under the light for several minutes, the neighbours asked the Mullah to retrace his steps.

The Mullah then revealed that he lost his key while he was in the house.

The flabbergasted neighbours then asked why didn't the Mullah looked inside his house?

The Mullah explained that it is dark inside the house but there's plenty of light under the street lamp.

Many of us can identify with Mullah Nasruddin, can we not?

The lighted area under the street lamp is a metaphor for our conscious mind. When we are trying to solve a problem, more often than not, we search for the solution in our conscious mind. Much like Mullah Nasruddin's futile search for his key under the street lamp, the search is in vain as the key is not there!

Mullah Nasruddin's unlit house is a metaphor for our unconscious mind. The key is in the house and all we need to do is to turn on the lights there. Yet we don't often search our unconscious mind because it is dark and unknown.

The Mullah's missing key is a metaphor for all the internal resources (e.g. confidence, courage, perseverance, etc) that we need to succeed. They are all already in our unconscious mind, just like the key has always been in Mullah Nasruddin's house.

It's just that sometimes we are unable to access our internal resources because we are in the wrong mental state (e.g. rage, sadness, lack of confidence, etc) and we are not looking inside.

The NLP practitioner can help others access their internal resources by putting them in the right mental state and by shining a light for them to help them look inside of themselves.

There are NLP tools such as anchoring, meta model, Milton model, SCORE model and many more that the NLP practitioner can use to help light up the unconscious mind.

The NLP practitioner's life is most rewarding because the greatest gift that we can give to anyone is to help them find the treasures within themselves, in their unconscious mind.

We have all the internal resources we need to succeed

RESPECT OTHERS' MAP OF THE WORLD

GENUINE UNDERSTANDING COMES ONLY WITH EXPERIENCE

ALWAYS LEAVE OTHERS IN A BETTER STATE

CHOICE IS BETTER THAN NO CHOICE

There is a Chinese saying that when a word leaves our mouth, even if we send four fast horses after it, we will not be able to take it back.

Have you ever said or done something – an angry word or a thoughtless act – without a moment’s pause which you later regretted?

I can think of several instances of my own.

In the time between something happening to us, and the time that we do something about it, there is a space.

This space may be just a moment, a split second or it could be longer.

In that space, we pause to choose our attitude towards what happened to us, and by making that choice, determine what we do next.  What we do, in turn, leads to the outcome or result.

During a recent road trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I learned (or was it relearned) the important lesson of taking a pause and choosing the appropriate attitude before taking action.

I was taking a leisurely drive on the North-South Highway from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. As the weather on that Saturday morning was bright and sunny, and as I had ample time, I took extra care to keep to the speed limit of 110 kilometres an hour.

As we approached Malacca town, we noticed the cars bunching up and slowing to a crawl. There was a police road block ahead. The cars inched forward. The police flagged some cars to pull over to the side for questioning while other cars were waved on.

As I had been at my best road behaviour, I was fully confident that I would be waved on.

Imagine my shock, surprise and frustration when I was flagged to the side of the road.

I wound down my window, incredulous at what was happening.

When a policeman with a thick pad of summons in his hand approached and said that I had been speeding, my mind flew instantly to the default reaction mode.

“Are you sure?!” I shot back aggressively without a moment of thought.

The policeman replied firmly: “Yes sir, you had been speeding”.

I persisted: “No way! Do you have any proof?! Show me the proof?!”

The police calmly replied: “Sir, our camera had you speeding at 112 kilometres an hour.”

By this time, I realised that I had been too quick, but it was too late. The policeman promptly issued me a summons for 300 Ringgits (US$90).

In this case, had I paused a moment and chose a less aggressive, less confrontational attitude, perhaps the policeman might have been more understanding. He might have exercised discretion and let me off with only a verbal warning as I had exceeded the speed limit by a mere 2 kilometres. I would not have been 300 Ringgits poorer.

You see when we do not pause and choose our attitude towards what is happening to us, we cannot choose the way we react to the situation. Knee jerk reactions, reacting unthinkingly, seldom if ever, produces favourable outcomes.

What I shared was just a minor episode. The pause is just as important in all other aspects of our lives including in matters of life and death. Indeed, the pause and the choice we make in that space can be a life saver, as I will now show you.

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist in Austria when the Second World War broke out. Frankl was taken away to a concentration along with millions of other Jews. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, had a plan to eliminate all Jews living in territories under German control.

As a psychiatrist, Frankl was fascinated by how different inmates coped with the terrible situation that they were in. They were in the same hell, but there were two distinct groups of inmates – those who survived and those who didn’t.

One group would fall sick, go to sleep and never wake up, or commit suicide. Another group would be going about showing concern for others and caring for others despite their own sufferings.

Frankl concluded that the secret lie in what he called “the last of the human freedoms”. Frankl realised that no matter what the situation we found ourselves in, we always have the freedom to choose our attitude towards it.

Frankl found that those who did not survive the concentration camp were those who were resigned to their fate. Those who succumbed were those who accepted their fate and lost hope. When they were treated badly by the guards, they automatically felt bad. Their sense of self worth took a hit, their morale went downhill, disease and metal anguish followed, and relieve came only when death overtook them.

On the other hand, those who survived were those who consciously chose to stay positive despite their dire situation and the ill treatment at the hands of the guards. Those who survived were those who paused and exercised their freedom to choose, to stay positive.

What do all these mean to me?

The next time a challenge arises, I will take a pause, however brief, to choose my attitude before I respond. I will strive not to live life on autopilot.

Give the pause and freedom of choice a try.

Pause. Exercise your freedom of choice because you will be amazed with the results.

Presuppositions of NLP - If Something Doesn't Work, Try Something Else

Be firm on principle but flexible on method
Zig Ziglar

Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it.
Brian Tracy

Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.
Tony Robbins

Flexibility -- In all aspects of life, the person with the most varied responses, wins.
Kelly Perdew

Presuppositions of NLP - There is No Such Thing as Failure, Only Feedback

Presuppositions of NLP - Every Problem Can Be Solved

Presuppositions of NLP: There is No Failure, Only Feedback

There is a Positive Intention Behind Every Behavior

When Something Doesn't Work, Try Something Else

Presuppositions of NLP Crossword Puzzle

Presuppositions of NLP: The Meaning of Your Communication is The Response You Get

Whatever you Think you are, You are Greater than that

Every Problem can be Solved